Sol de Vida, a solar cooking promotion group in Costa Rica, has been awarded the 1999 National Prize in Energy—Innovative Project. This recognition is granted annually by the Executive Power, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the National Power and Light Company, the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica and the Association for the Investigation and Development of Energy and the Environment. Sol de Vida is best known for its programs of construction and use of solar cookers, its ExpoSol educational facility on solar and environmental matters, and its annual Fiesta del Sol event. In 2001 Sol de Vida won Ford Motor Company Environmental Award for its Solar Stove project and three additional SGP projects in the Gulf of Nicoya.

Operating in the Santa Cruz and Nicoya counties of the Guanacaste region, Fundación Sol de Vida takes a holistic approach to expanding the use of renewable energy. The project not only promotes the use of solar power for cooking, but also seeks to build women’s capacity for other development activities through the process of constructing and using solar cookers. The project originated in 1989 when an American physics professor, William Lankford, visited Costa Rica and a number of women attended a workshop he gave on building solar cookers. After this, the women themselves established the Fundación Sol de Vida in 1994.